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Kresge CEO explores role in arts and culture in Detroit in Federal Reserve journal

The Center for Community Development Investments at the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco focuses on creative placemaking in the newest issue of its journal Community Development Investment Review.

The themed issue includes articles by experts in multiple disciplines, all addressing the importance of artists and arts organizations in community development. Together, the articles encourage greater incorporation of creative approaches in placemaking.

In his article, Rapson describes arts and culture as central to the city’s past and to its future.Assembled by Laura Callanan, guest editor and visiting scholar at the Federal Reserve, the creative placemaking issue includes an article by Kresge CEO Rip Rapson who was invited to explore the role of arts and culture in Detroit, Kresge’s hometown.

More than 160 arts organizations are located in the city, he notes. From major institutions to small- and medium-sized organizations and projects, cultural activities touch the lives and daily routines of thousands of community residents.

The article touches on the impact of National Endowment for the Arts’ proposition that arts and culture can restore and animate communities; and on the steps government, philanthropic and arts partners undertook to reduce the impact of Detroit’s municipal bankruptcy on city pensioners and prevent the sell-off of city-owned art.

The unprecedented actions in the bankruptcy speak “legions about the value Detroit places on arts and culture,” Rapson writes. They’re also “an invitation to explore the burgeoning vibrancy of other dimensions of the city’s cultural ecology.”